


so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: luminous beings [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Coda, Multi, Rey Organa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 05:18:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13047291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Rey learns how to say goodbyes that aren't final.





	so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [celeste9](https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/gifts).



Rey never felt at ease in Finn’s bay unless she was doing something. The medical station that had been allocated to him was decently private - if nothing else, it kept people from gawking at the stormtrooper defector hero wreathed in rumours and medical appliances. But there was nothing to stop people from gawking at Rey when she entered or left the bay, and she felt like she couldn’t just sit with him without people drawing conclusions that Rey would prefer to draw with Finn in their own good time, once he’d woken up. So instead of sitting still and doing nothing, Rey meditated, or checked the machines, or discussed Finn’s care with the droids, or worked on the exercises Chirrut gave her and the texts her mother had offered her.

Leia Organa was many things, Rey was learning. One of them was a surprisingly meticulous archivist of Jedi knowledge. Some of it she gave to Rey to read or listen to in her own time; some of it she taught Rey while braiding her hair, in between teaching her the braids.

Rey touched her coronet, which she could now braid about half as neatly as her mother could, and stared down at Finn’s unconscious body. This would have to be the last visit for some time: she couldn’t just pop back from whichever secluded planet Luke Skywalker had withdrawn to in order to check Finn was still breathing.

Rey touched the smooth pulse of his wrist and peered closely at his face. He looked as if he were only sleeping: his chest rose and fell evenly, and monitors charted the slow regeneration of his spinal nerves around the metal skeleton provided for their scaffolding. He hadn’t woken yet, and though Rey sometimes reached out to him the way she had on the Falcon, he never answered her.

Rey let go of Finn’s arm reluctantly, lowering it gently to the bed with a soft pat to the back of his wrist in case he felt abandoned, and circled around the monitors, looking for something she could decently do. Quite besides her nervousness about being caught sitting and staring at Finn like she was in the middle of some lovelorn vigil, Rey simply hadn’t been raised to be idle. Until she came to live with Baze and Chirrut she worked her childish fingers to the bone just to eat, and after that there had always been something she could or should do, some chore or lesson, the hours to keep or tasks to assist with. Rey was only motionless when she meditated. Even prayer meant movement.

But she had gone over all the machines yesterday. They were in perfect order. And she had helped Major Kalonia’s favourite diagnostic droid with that sticky circuit the day before. She had completed her meditations in the morning with Chirrut, and her mother’s latest instructive text - a biography of Ahsoka Tano - was on her datapad, in her rucksack, on the Falcon, ready to leave.

All Rey had to do now was say goodbye to Finn, but she was as unfamiliar with saying goodbye as she was with sitting still. She hadn’t said goodbye to Tuanul or Niima Outpost, and she had few friends here to even consider saying goodbye to specially - at least none that she needed to say goodbye to just yet. Chewbacca and her father were coming with her, her mother would see them off on the tarmac, and her grandfathers had sent her off with practical admonitions the same way they had when they saw her off for a day’s scavenging. The only true goodbye Rey recalled involved abandonment, and - she was increasingly certain - the deliberate erasure of all her childhood memories by her brother, who had wiped out his own into the bargain. It was a terrible way to save a life, and Rey had not forgiven Ben; but knowing what he had done did not make this kinder goodbye any easier.

Rey fidgeted, and then jumped out of her skin and reached for a knife when someone coughed softly behind her.

“It’s only me,” Poe said peaceably, his familiar warm presence in the Force as much of a relief as the easy way he leaned against the wall and didn’t react to her twitchiness.

“Good,” Rey said. She looked down at Finn. “Good.”

She patted Finn’s other hand, just for something to do, and did not watch as Poe lounged over and sat down in one of the visitors’ chairs. There were two. There was usually only one, but Chirrut and Baze liked to visit at the same time, and so did Colonel Andor and Captain Erso, and everyone was far too frightened of Rogue One to tell them not to steal extra chairs.

“That’s a new outfit,” Poe said, resting one of his hands over Finn’s. “Hey, Finn, buddy. You’ve got to wake up, you need to see how pretty Rey looks in blue and grey.”

Rey flushed and swore at him, but made no serious complaint. Poe only teased her about Finn where strangers couldn’t hear, and he teased her like a privileged older sibling, tousled her hair and let her play with his X-wing. Rey infinitely preferred that to the reverence many other people approached her with. Poe sometimes looked at her like he saw a little lost girl returned by miracles and the Force, but he never looked at her and saw a legend.

“Apparently I can’t wear the same things I wore on Jakku any more,” Rey said, trying to be neutral. Baze and Chirrut had packed up a couple of practical changes of clothes for her when they’d left Tuanul so abruptly, but nothing she’d owned had been fit for the status that had now been imposed on her; Rey resented that with a fierceness she spent a lot of time trying to understand. The small wardrobe Rey now possessed, made over with the help of the quartermasters, had come in part from Kaydel’s own things and from the late Korr Sella’s, and from clothes of her mother’s adapted to fit; basics came from the uniform stock, but Rey wasn’t a soldier, and princesses couldn’t go around in ill-fitting combats. They couldn’t wear black and red or sturdy canvas either; Rey had had to fight for the jacket Chirrut and Baze had given her, and had been forced to put her foot down so hard it almost went through the floor on the subject of wearing silk, or chiffon, or anything else delicate.

Princesses wore blues and greys and dull earth greens and browns, and one bright flash of white that had made Rey’s mother glare at the propaganda officer who had had it ordered. Given the lightsabre loops on everything, Rey suspected that propaganda officer of trying to resurrect the Princess Leia and Jedi Skywalker of thirty years ago and roll them both into one convenient package.

“Well, Finn’s not going to go around in stormtrooper white any more,” Poe said reasonably, but his eyes were soft with understanding; if he claimed an older sibling’s right to mock her, he also defended her like one, and Rey had leaned on him heavily over the last week. “If it helps, I have officially trained my entire squadron to call you Rey. And Black Squadron has written a protocol for new recruits, so we can teach them to call you by the right name, not ask you for blessings, and talk machinery to you. We call it A Guide to the Care and Feeding of Jedi, Part Two.”

Rey, who had run out of medical bay to pace around, dropped into a chair on Finn’s opposite side and blinked at Poe. “Why Jedi?” she asked. She had no intention of ever calling herself a Jedi, and she still didn’t wear the lightsabre on a regular basis, much to the disappointment of many people around her.

Then she frowned. “And why Part Two?”

“Because Rogue Squadron wrote the original A Guide to the Care and Feeding of Jedi on Hoth. A Guide to the Care and Feeding of Guardians of the Whills doesn’t trip off the tongue. Or have the same historical associations. Sorry.”

Unwillingly, Rey smiled. She took Finn’s hand in hers, and - careful of the assorted wires running into the back of his palm - curled her fingers gently into his.

She checked her chronometer. Ten minutes left. She’d been here twenty minutes already, silent with confusion, and she had done nothing.

Rey took a deep breath and looked up to catch Poe’s eye. “Poe,” she said. “How do you say goodbye?”

Poe blinked hard, a certain wariness entering his expression. “Rey, Finn’s going to live - Major Kalonia said it’s just a matter of time -”

“I know,” Rey said hastily, “I know, we’re both coming back, it’s just, I - how do you say goodbye to someone?” She swallowed. “Who… is…” She felt that flush spreading across her face again, and rubbed her cheeks frustratedly. “Different.”

“Oh,” Poe said, and then understanding spread across his face. “Of course.” He paused, and he tilted his head to one side. “Well… that depends. It’s not really that different to saying goodbye to anyone else; there’s nothing special you have to do, or say, unless… If there’s anything you want to say to them that’s important, you should say it. I can leave, if you want…”

Rey shook her head jerkily. She had nothing to say to Finn that she wouldn’t be happy for Poe to know.

Poe nodded. “It’s nice to say you’ll see them again soon,” he said. “Or that you’ll bring them back a souvenir. As a joke, or - meaning it.” He smiled shamefacedly. “I like to mean it, sometimes. Some missions, the best bit is finding a dumb trinket for a friend.”

“Is that why Karé has a shirt that says _my boss went to Onderon and all I got was this stupid t-shirt_?”

“Yep,” Poe grinned. “And why Snap has a Cloud City snowglobe. Anyway, if you’re saying goodbye to someone particular, whether it’s family or a close friend or a lover, it’s nice to give them a hug or a kiss if that’s what they like, and take a little bit of time over it, make them feel like it was important to you to see them before you went. Unless it’ll make you both cry.”

“I’ve been here nearly thirty minutes,” Rey said.

“Rey, _nena_ , Finn would know he was essential to you if you turned up for thirty seconds.”

Rey scowled, and Poe raised his hands in mock surrender.

“My point is, you’re doing this right. You came to see him specially, tell him you were going, and tell him you’ll be back soon. That’s enough.”

“Is it what…” Rey hesitated. “Is that what normal people do?”

Poe ran a hand through his black curls. “Rey, what normal people do doesn’t matter. What you think it’s necessary does.”

“I don't want people to gossip about me more because I can’t… do things right.”

Poe looked at her so kindly that Rey felt very small and stupid. “Have you had a screaming match in the command centre followed by a pretty reasonable attempt to shoot down the ship of the person leaving?”

Rey stared at him. “No,” she said definitely.

“Then you’re doing better than your parents.”

“Oh,” Rey said, and looked back at Finn.

A hug or a kiss, if that’s what they like.

Rey closed her fingers around Finn’s. “I’m going to find Luke Skywalker,” she said, slowly, with thought. “And bring him back. Whether he likes it or not.”

Poe snorted, but waved at her to carry on when she glared at him.

“I’ll be back soon,” Rey said. “Poe will know how to get hold of me, if you want to.”

Then she dragged all her courage into one place, leaned up and over, and planted a very small, light kiss on Finn’s forehead. She didn’t look at Poe afterwards for a while; her ears were burning.

“I’ll take care of him,” Poe said. “Anyone who gives him shit will answer to me.”

Rey nodded. “Thank you,” she said softly, disengaging her fingers from Finn’s with difficulty.

“No trouble.”

Poe got to his feet at the same time she did, and held out his arms to her. Rey blinked at them for a moment, and then practically ran into the hug he was offering her.

“What if I can’t bring my uncle back?” she said, extremely muffled by the lapel of his jacket. “What if he doesn’t want to? Or won’t? What if we can’t find him?”

“You’ll make it work,” Poe said confidently into the top of her braided head. “You’re the best scavenger on Jakku. You can find anything. And if he doesn’t behave you can whack him with your staff and tell him not to waste your time.”

Rey snorted.

“Hey, it worked on me.”

Rey laughed rather uncertainly, and squeezed her arms more tightly around Poe’s ribs. He wasn’t much taller than her, and his shoulders weren’t as broad or strong as Finn’s, but he gave very comforting hugs.

“Bye, Poe,” she said, and let go, backing towards the door, unwilling to let him or Finn out of her sight. “See you soon.”

“There you go,” Poe said, smiling. “You’re a natural.”


End file.
